Hüseyindede Tepe is an
Early Hittite site in the
Sungurlu
Sungurlu is the largest and wealthiest district of Çorum Province in the Black Sea Region of Turkey, located 72 km south-west of the city of Çorum. The population is about 59,283, of which 34,159 live in the town of Sungurlu. The mayor is ...
district of Turkey's
Çorum Province
Çorum ( tr, ) is a province in the Black Sea Region of Turkey, but lying inland and having more characteristics of Central Anatolia than the Black Sea coast. Its provincial capital is the city of Çorum, the traffic code is 19.
History
Exca ...
, about 2 km south of a town called
Yörüklü (pop. 2,988 as of 2000). The site has been surveyed in 1997, leading to the discovery of the
Hüseyindede vases, one of which depicts dancers and processions and the other of which shows thirteen figures, with two in the act of
somersaulting over a bull. A third Hittite vase depicting dancers, musicians and acrobats was found in
İnandık. The artwork is in Anatolian style and not an import from
Minoan Crete
The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age Aegean civilization on the island of Crete and other Aegean Islands, whose earliest beginnings were from 3500BC, with the complex urban civilization beginning around 2000BC, and then declining from 1450B ...
, the area mostly associated with
bull-leaping
Bull-leaping ( grc, ταυροκαθάψια, ) is a term for various types of non-violent bull fighting. Some are based on an ancient ritual from the Minoan civilization involving an acrobat leaping over the back of a charging bull (or cow). ...
.
Bibliography
*Yildirim, Tayfun, ''Yörüklü/Hüseyindede: Eine neue hethitische Siedlung im Südwesten von Çorum'', Istanbuler Mitteilungen (ISSN 0341-9142) 50 (2000), 43–62.
*Sipahi, Tunç, New Evidence From Anatolia Regarding Bull Leaping Scenes in the Art of the Aegean and the Near East, Anatolica 27 (2001), 107–125.
Hittite sites in Turkey
Archaeological sites in the Black Sea Region
Former populated places in Turkey
Geography of Çorum Province
History of Çorum Province
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